Editorial Technique

Editorial Technique

methods used in the publication of scholarly texts, primarily well-established ones, such as classical works, historical or linguistic sources, and documents; one of the applied uses of textual criticism.

The most important task in editorial technique is the establishment of a text for publication through studying its history. An established text must correspond to the creative intentions of the writer and be free of extraneous additions and damage, in particular, changes linked with censorship (including self-censorship). Another task is the transcription of the text, which involves applying modern orthography and script while preserving the essence of the content, as well as lexicological, morphological, syntactical, and phonetic peculiarities of the published text. Of utmost importance is the formulation of a reference apparatus, including accompanying articles, indexes, and especially commentaries (notes).

The resolution of all the problems of editorial technique depends on whether the publication is intended to be scholarly or popular. In regard to structure and content, the text may be published as a complete collection of works, selected works, an anthology, or a publication of separate works or documents.

Specialists in editorial technique and textual criticism cannot merely rely on the mechanical application of previously established “rules.” Universal conventions do not take into account all the various forms, shades of meaning, and unusual connotations of the written word. Certain rules, such as those set by the latest text, are justified in most cases; however, they do not relieve the scholar of his duty to undertake concrete research to establish the authentic creative intentions of the author. A philological analysis of the text necessitates the collation of sources to make known the latest interpretations; various techniques of scholarly philological research are also indispensable. An established text is not declared the standard one, but is acknowledged as such (at the current level of study) by a number of authorities. The work of the editor is documented and substantiated within the publication and therefore can be checked by the reader.

Apart from its novel presentation (itself no mean achievement in the often dusty realm of reference works), this editorial technique had the advantage of stressing the contingent, "happening" quality of literature: literature in the making rather than as a collection of timeless and fixed "great works.

In the interests of reaching a balanced assessment of Stover's editorial performance, it is probably just as well that the present reviewer is not fully au fait with what seems to have been a lively skirmish (conducted mainly in the pages of The Wellsian) over Stover's editorial technique ("Stoverism") in the earlier volumes of the series--which seems to have drawn some fire, among other things, "for not reading the author's life into his work" (2).

They pursue Richardson's ambiguity from his editorial technique, through his attitudes toward paternal, social, religious, and literary contexts, to his reception by women readers and authors--a particularly original and powerful section.

At 319 pages and 3,082 entries, his section (over one-third of the book's total length) is a monument to thoroughness and exemplary editorial technique that might have been better expended on a more robust subject.

With a brief text, the legend of St Vedastus, as demonstration material, Carolien Hilhorst-Boink and Tom Hilhorst compare the Latin original with the Middle Dutch translation in the Passionael and after this detailed examination of translating techniques they use the same text to investigate the editorial techniques of a recent editor of the Legenda, G.

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